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Connected

44: Ignorance By Design

 

00:00:00   [Intro music]

00:00:07   From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode number 44.

00:00:10   Today's show is brought to you by lynda.com, where you can instantly stream thousands of courses

00:00:15   created by industry experts. PDFPen Pro 7, take control of PDFs on your Mac and Field Notes.

00:00:22   I'm not running it down to remember it later, I'm writing it down to remember it now.

00:00:27   My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined today by the wonderful Mr Federico Vittici.

00:00:31   Hello Myke.

00:00:33   Hello Federico, how are you?

00:00:34   I'm doing well, sir. How are you?

00:00:38   I am very well, sir. I am very well indeed.

00:00:40   What's the news in England today? Tell me something that's new in your country.

00:00:46   There has been a host announced to replace the Top Gear hosts. His name is Chris Evans

00:00:53   and he is a radio host and he will be taking over as the host of Top Gear.

00:00:56   I'm pretty sure I only understood one word of what she said which is host.

00:01:02   Host.

00:01:03   And radio.

00:01:04   Top Gear is a car show of stuff about cars.

00:01:13   Yep.

00:01:14   Right?

00:01:15   Yeah.

00:01:16   Oh good stuff man.

00:01:18   Can you share with me a piece of news from Italy today?

00:01:24   I don't watch the news much, but I think we have a problem with immigrants this week.

00:01:28   Oh, okay.

00:01:29   It sounds really awful based on what I saw on the television.

00:01:36   I follow more American news than Italian news, which kind of separates me from society in

00:01:42   a way.

00:01:43   So sometimes people kind of want to make small talk and talk about politics and I don't know

00:01:46   what they're talking about because I don't follow anything here.

00:01:49   It's like I'm separated from what's going on in Italy.

00:01:53   Occasionally I do watch the news, it's just that most of the time I just stare at the screen and black out

00:02:00   and I don't understand what they're saying.

00:02:02   You know, it's sad and strange and funny depending on the person you're talking to.

00:02:11   Michael, why is it you and me today?

00:02:15   Our good buddy, Mr. Steven Hackett, has been dealing with some family crisis this week.

00:02:24   And I'll put in a link in the show notes to a little family blog that Steven keeps if

00:02:29   you are interested in such things to keep up with what is happening in the Hackett household.

00:02:35   So I just want to take a moment to just send my love to the Hackett family.

00:02:40   Everything is okay, but you know, those guys, they go for a bit of a tough time every now

00:02:44   and then and sometimes Steven needs to take a little bit of time to go and deal with that,

00:02:47   which we want him to do because the most important thing is his family. So I want him to make sure

00:02:53   that they're all loved and taken care of because they are a great bunch. So yeah.

00:02:57   We love you very much Steven.

00:02:59   Yeah.

00:02:59   And Myke, just let me clarify real quick. The politics small talk, it's not about the

00:03:06   immigrants. That's a terrible story. The stuff I don't like, it's the Berlusconi gossip and that

00:03:12   that kind of stuff, which is still happening apparently in Italy, because the guy kind

00:03:16   of got out of jail or whatever, and they're still, you know, talking about this person,

00:03:22   and people are like "Yeah, did you see what it did?" and I have no idea what it did, honestly.

00:03:29   But the other stuff is awful, and actually the problem kind of, it's also in Rome, we

00:03:35   have a problem with all these people coming from these North African countries, which

00:03:41   is terrible because they're escaping the war and we don't have the facilities, my understanding

00:03:47   at least, we don't have the facilities to treat these people properly, you know, to

00:03:51   give them food and shelter, which is terrible.

00:03:54   And yeah, so your news sounds much better than mine, Myke.

00:04:00   Man, our show notes already this week are really eclectic.

00:04:06   We have Chris Evans to be the new Top Gear presenter, BBC News.

00:04:10   "Italy threatens to give Shenzhen visas to migrants as EU ministers meet" from The Guardian

00:04:14   and then Josiah updates, which is Stephen's family blog.

00:04:18   They're all over the place so far this week.

00:04:20   So we should probably actually talk about some of the topic at hand rather than discussing

00:04:27   world politics.

00:04:28   What do you think?

00:04:29   Yeah, I feel like that's a good implementation of our philosophy, Myke.

00:04:36   I like that.

00:04:37   So let's do some follow-up.

00:04:38   Follow-up.

00:04:39   Follow up.

00:04:41   Kevin writes in and says "During your WWDC impressions episode you talked about Beats

00:04:46   One.

00:04:47   Calling it an international radio station seems odd to me given that from what I can

00:04:50   tell it's an exclusively English language broadcast.

00:04:53   At 1 minute and 8, or 1 hour and 8 minutes I guess in the, or 1 minute and 8 seconds

00:04:58   into the Apple Music introduction video Julie Adenuga, is that how do you say it?

00:05:03   Adenuga?

00:05:04   Adenuga?

00:05:05   She's from London so you should know.

00:05:08   She describes Beats 1 as "Apple's first 24/7 worldwide radio station.

00:05:13   Given this phrasing, I suspect that we'll eventually see stations in Chinese, Arabic,

00:05:17   Spanish, etc.

00:05:18   Do you think that this is a reasonable expectation?"

00:05:20   Uh, yeah.

00:05:23   I mean, it seems like that would be a smart thing to do, for it to be world music, rather

00:05:30   than just music picked by people that speak English.

00:05:33   local stations and local programs just seems like the obvious next step for radio, done

00:05:40   by Apple at least.

00:05:41   And there's all sorts of channels and programs.

00:05:45   Even if you just kind of step back from music, they could do news, they could do sports.

00:05:50   And even if we just stick with music, just imagine all the local programming they could

00:05:54   do and the local artists they could interview and have special live shows for, I don't know,

00:06:00   Italian musicians and bands.

00:06:03   It seems obvious to me that they want to do this, but it also seems like a clever move

00:06:09   to start with these three well-known DJs and kind of say "We have an English radio, we're

00:06:17   going to broadcast this worldwide, and so we're going to start from there, and we'll

00:06:22   see how it goes."

00:06:23   You know, this is what Apple does, they start with small changes, and then, you know, in

00:06:30   In three years you have these radio stations all over the place.

00:06:33   I think that's definitely the plan.

00:06:35   Because I think what they're doing is they're looking at two big centres of music, which

00:06:40   is America and the UK.

00:06:41   And they're starting there and then building out.

00:06:43   Which I think is, if you're going to start, they're probably the places to start and then

00:06:49   move from there.

00:06:50   But I think that they should do this.

00:06:52   They should have radio stations that cater to the world.

00:06:57   it's just catering to the world's languages. You don't need to have like a station in every major city, but...

00:07:03   Well, they should have gone with the with an Esperanto radio station. It's a true global language.

00:07:08   Do you know Esperanto, Myke?

00:07:10   I've heard about it. I don't know how to speak it.

00:07:14   Yeah, I kind of started a Duolingo course, the beta course, to learn Esperanto, so I kind of know

00:07:22   two sentences for Esperanto.

00:07:24   Look at you. Look at you.

00:07:25   Yeah, all Esperantian. Is there an objective for being an Esperanto person?

00:07:31   But yes, I mean English for better or worse, it's the language, you know, it's the global language

00:07:38   and so it makes sense even if it's not your local language, you can still listen and have a

00:07:44   very basic understanding, especially in new generations. Like I feel like for my mother,

00:07:50   for my family it would be a problem to listen to Apple music right now. But for my friends,

00:07:56   you know, people my age, we grew up learning English and being exposed to English media,

00:08:02   like TV shows, movies, books and video games, it's a no brainer. So, I know that there's plenty of

00:08:09   people who can't learn English but if you want to go with a global broadcast, that's your only

00:08:15   the option basically unless really you want to do Esperanto but I kind of struggle to

00:08:20   see Apple getting behind Esperanto.

00:08:22   Anyway, Jose has written in "On the subject of whether Apple is behind on the whole intelligent

00:08:28   aspect, they are at least for the 10% of Android users that tend to get the newest version

00:08:34   of Android in the first year.

00:08:36   What he goes on to say, if it continues to take years for features like Google Now on

00:08:39   tap to trickle down to the majority of Android users, then Google's head start doesn't matter

00:08:44   as much.

00:08:45   Apple choose to mine user data on their servers, this would also mean that they have more users

00:08:52   available immediately and therefore more data to work with since a much larger percentage

00:08:56   of their users upgrade soon after release.

00:08:58   So what I would say is getting at, if I understand it correctly, is that Apple is going to be

00:09:03   in front of Google because they have a bigger percentage of users to upgrade initially.

00:09:12   that because Google only have about 10% of Android users that upgrade to a new

00:09:15   version of Android, their efforts in machine learning and intelligence won't

00:09:20   be as advanced as Apple's could be. This argument doesn't hold any water for me.

00:09:25   And the reason is, is because yes, Google's adoption rates are weird, right?

00:09:31   And way worse than Apple's, but this isn't where the technology is coming

00:09:36   from. Like, based on what we've seen so far, Google now on tap, for example, appears

00:09:42   to be like, well one it's more advanced right? It is more advanced than what Apple

00:09:46   have with Siri. They're doing more things and it seems to be smarter about what

00:09:50   it's doing. But the information that Google is getting is being given to them

00:09:55   and perpetuated by the people that use all of Google services. And that's where

00:10:01   the strength is coming from. It's because they have people using Google search and

00:10:05   Gmail and Google Photos. It doesn't matter if they're using Android M or not.

00:10:08   The system is learning because everybody's using it. Which is how it's

00:10:11   learnt in the first place?

00:10:13   Yeah, to me, like, I'm trying to imagine the different approaches by Google and Apple,

00:10:21   and to me it's like, if you give a match to 10 million people, and if you give a torch

00:10:27   to 1 million people, where's gonna be the most fire?

00:10:32   And because Apple is doing this lightweight intelligence at scale, you know, with iOS

00:10:38   9, a lot of people are gonna upgrade.

00:10:40   For Android you can argue that the more advanced stuff is gonna be limited to just people who upgrade and so that's gonna be far

00:10:48   you know a fewer

00:10:50   You know an inferior number of people having the last version of Android with the more

00:10:55   You know with the new Google now and all this new stuff

00:10:58   But and that's I kind of agree with that because it you know

00:11:03   There's more people on one end doing the Apple intelligence and there's fewer people on the other end

00:11:08   But as you say the Google layer of intelligence, it's more horizontal

00:11:14   It you know, they can collect data

00:11:17   Which is what Apple doesn't want to do to kind of collect data for different Apple services. Google can do the same

00:11:23   even for people don't upgrade to the latest Android and

00:11:27   So that gives them an advantage and if you consider Apple's plans in Siri intelligence and in search for iOS 9

00:11:36   I could see this becoming a problem. If they want to make sure that search and suggestions from Siri are really contextual and personal to users,

00:11:50   it's going to be difficult or maybe we just don't know it yet because we'll need to see the technology in practice.

00:11:57   But it's going to be tricky for Apple to do this kind of personalization without the data collection.

00:12:03   And not just data collection, because they are doing data collection, but not knowing too much or not comparing data between two different Apple services.

00:12:13   For instance, what if Apple was able to look at my Safari history and look at my Apple Maps history and find patterns or bits of information that paint a more complete picture of my habits.

00:12:26   Google does that stuff even if you don't have the latest version of Android.

00:12:31   So, you know, it's apples to oranges maybe in a way.

00:12:35   And I guess we just need to wait for iOS 9 to see if actually this can scale, if this can work.

00:12:42   And if Apple's plan is, you know, that they kind of want to rely, they want to rely on apps and developers to kind of do the heavy lifting for them.

00:12:50   We'll see. I feel like it's too early to compare the Apple intelligence versus the

00:12:55   Google intelligence stuff that they've been doing for decades.

00:13:00   Yep.

00:13:01   He has a point, but there's also your side which makes sense.

00:13:05   So the facts in Jose's stuff ring true that there is a smaller amount of adoption, so it might be that some

00:13:11   features don't get as advanced, but I don't imagine a world in the next ten

00:13:16   years where Apple is able to get as much information as Google has. Like it's just

00:13:19   because they approach it in fundamentally different ways. And the

00:13:24   fact that Google don't mind, or they're not fussed about taking data in,

00:13:29   analyzing that data to make trends, which they're able to apply across the whole

00:13:32   user base, this seems like something that Apple is not doing. Which is a

00:13:38   difference in choice, but it will end up with different results. I don't

00:13:42   know which one will be best, but the results will be different.

00:13:44   Apple's model is ignorance by design.

00:13:48   They don't want to know.

00:13:50   They don't want to know about you.

00:13:51   And they say, "We want to have as little data about you as possible, because we feel like

00:13:56   we don't want to use this.

00:13:57   We don't want to store this information.

00:13:59   So we don't want it."

00:14:01   And it's going to be...

00:14:03   We still don't know if millions and millions of people are...

00:14:08   Can you tell how many active users Google Now has?

00:14:11   We don't know.

00:14:13   They do make impressive demos.

00:14:15   I think Google now on tap is amazing, but is it because I'm a nerd and I'm fascinated

00:14:21   by this kind of intelligence like the Google presenter on stage?

00:14:25   I don't know.

00:14:26   Could be.

00:14:27   Or maybe, you know, can people like my friends and my mom who I feel like I'm bringing up

00:14:33   too often and she knew English, she'd be upset at me.

00:14:37   those people enjoy this kind of advanced intelligence or are they okay with the basic Apple intelligence

00:14:44   stuff? Will they be okay with that? Will they suffice for those people? We don't know. So

00:14:50   Jose, it's a good question. Good discussion.

00:14:56   Let me take a break here. In a moment, come back after this break Federico, I want you

00:15:00   to tell me about the Notes app.

00:15:02   Oh yeah, okay.

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00:17:17   show and all of RealAFM. So Federico, talk to me about the Notes app. You've been using

00:17:24   this and there's some weird news that's come out this week which kind of nicely links in

00:17:28   with it.

00:17:29   Yeah, concerning news. So according to the information, Phil Libin, the CEO of Evernote,

00:17:37   is about to announce that he's stepping down and they're looking for a replacement internally

00:17:42   to guide Evernote and this is worrisome because Libin has been very vocal about wanting to

00:17:50   build a company that would last 100 years and obviously if the report is accurate that's

00:17:59   not going to be the case, at least not under his guidance.

00:18:02   I mean, I don't know if he imagined that it could live 100 years so I suppose that he

00:18:07   had in mind to find a successor sooner or later. But still, this sounds unexpected,

00:18:14   at least based on the way the article presents this rumour. They even quote the CEO as saying

00:18:24   "I need to find someone who's better than me at guiding the company". They say that

00:18:31   has been a product person, meaning that he's not really an operational guy, he wants to

00:18:38   build products and features, not to guide a company with big business and stuff, which

00:18:43   makes sense but still kind of concerns me because we've been talking about the state

00:18:47   of Evernote and kind of the changes that they brought over the years to the app, they made

00:18:53   it look different and they changed the design again and it feels like every few months or

00:18:58   so they bring a new feature, they change stuff, they add a lot on top of simple notes.

00:19:05   So now you can do presentations and you can do shared notes, you can do real-time chat,

00:19:12   which by the way, Evernote really wants you to know that you can do work chat.

00:19:16   I don't know if you notice in the app, but you can do work chat, Myke.

00:19:19   There's a banner constantly to remind me of work chat.

00:19:23   You can do Office documents, you can do search, you can do a lot of things in Evernote.

00:19:27   And I do love Evernote and it's served me very, very well over the years, especially

00:19:35   because it's got an open API so I can play around with third-party apps.

00:19:40   I just love the integration workflow with IFTTT and all these other services.

00:19:46   It's awesome.

00:19:47   They built a true ecosystem.

00:19:49   But the app feels a little crowded and cluttered and it feels confusing.

00:19:56   And it's not a good sign that every once in a while, and very often actually, they change

00:20:02   stuff.

00:20:03   They move things around.

00:20:04   And it does feel like they don't have a clear vision.

00:20:08   Again, we talked about this on other shows, Virtual for Video Games, about Microsoft constantly

00:20:15   backtracking on products and announcements.

00:20:18   And Evernote, they're not backtracking, but they're changing things very often.

00:20:23   And so, you know, they had these different apps that at one point they had an app for

00:20:29   recipes and one to study with the iPad and the Smart Cover.

00:20:34   That's an Avro product at one point that actually happened.

00:20:37   So they did a bunch of things.

00:20:41   And maybe they lost focus along the way.

00:20:44   And so this report is kind of concerning, not totally surprising, but it got me…

00:20:50   So this came out last night and it got me thinking about what I've been trying for the

00:20:55   past week.

00:20:56   So I told you, man this was a long introduction, I told you that I installed iOS 9 on all my

00:21:06   primary devices and I told you also that I installed El Capitan on my MacBook Air.

00:21:14   To my horror, to my absolute horror.

00:21:18   Yeah, well, the show was fine, wasn't it?

00:21:21   Mm-hmm.

00:21:22   No, don't try to make me feel guilty about this.

00:21:25   It was, but what if it... Anyway.

00:21:27   No.

00:21:28   Anyway, it doesn't matter.

00:21:29   No, you don't live your life on what-ifs, Myke. It was fine. Don't worry. So...

00:21:35   Did you see that we're talking about notes and then I'm giving you life lessons? What

00:21:41   is this? Psychology session?

00:21:44   So, so Jesus, Myke.

00:21:47   So I'm just trying to say,

00:21:48   I've been using the Notes app on my phone.

00:21:51   - For a couple of weeks now.

00:21:53   - No, for a week. - I'm happy to say.

00:21:54   - No, no, it's not a beta.

00:21:56   Well, it is a beta.

00:21:57   It's not that kind of beta.

00:21:59   I've been using the Notes app on my phone

00:22:03   with the new Notes app as a new iCloud backend.

00:22:06   So it's really, it's been super stable for me at syncing,

00:22:11   which is surprising because every time

00:22:13   I used to try the notes up in the past,

00:22:14   it felt like it created duplicates all over the place

00:22:17   and was like, you want to have a single note?

00:22:19   No, you gotta have 10 duplicates of this note,

00:22:22   which wasn't the best user experience if you ask me.

00:22:25   But now it's like, sync is really fast.

00:22:29   So every time you open the app,

00:22:30   if it's not already updated,

00:22:32   you see a spinning icon for like two seconds and it's done.

00:22:37   I have the same set of notes with same formatting

00:22:40   on my iPhone, my iPad, my Mac, and even the web app.

00:22:43   It's nice and it does what I wanted to do,

00:22:47   which is reach text with links and images.

00:22:51   What I've been using a lot,

00:22:54   and this is why I'm thinking about Evernote,

00:22:57   I've been using the share extension in iOS 9 and on OS 10,

00:23:03   I'll cap. They got this share extension that lets you

00:23:08   append text to an existing note or create a new note, but what I like is that I can

00:23:14   append text and links to a note. This lets me create a list of articles or news, videos,

00:23:22   whatever that I want to talk about, either on the show or on Megstories, of course, or

00:23:29   maybe on our newsletter. I have a lot of lists of links and stuff that I need to cover or

00:23:37   do that is not a task.

00:23:39   It's maybe an article that I need to

00:23:41   reference or that kind of stuff.

00:23:43   I used to do these kind of things in Evernote with workflow.

00:23:48   They have an action to,

00:23:50   you bring it up in the iOS share sheet,

00:23:55   and you run a workflow in your pen text to Evernote.

00:23:57   But it's always been not perfectly reliable,

00:24:01   and also slow because you need to tap "Share",

00:24:04   you need to select "Workflow",

00:24:05   then you need to select the Evernote workflow and then you're done, hopefully.

00:24:10   And instead, on iOS 9 I can just tap Share, Notes is right there, and it's done.

00:24:18   And what I also like a lot is that when I append a link to the new Notes app, you get

00:24:25   this new format for links.

00:24:27   So you get like a small snippet.

00:24:30   You get the title, you get the URL, and you get a thumbnail preview, an image from a video

00:24:36   or from an article, which is really handy to visually browse the links that I have in

00:24:41   a note.

00:24:42   And I've also been trying, of course, on iOS 9, the Notes app, because it already supports

00:24:47   SlideOver and SplitView, and it's been glorious to take notes on my iPad while watching the

00:24:55   session videos from WWDC on the left side, taking notes on the right side, it's been

00:25:00   amazing and it's been like the kind of focus that I always wanted from my iPad, you know,

00:25:05   to have two things at the same time but still be focused on the task.

00:25:09   It's just that, you know, even if it's two things, the task is still one.

00:25:15   And I feel like the Notes app at this point, sync is fast, I can save links quickly, I

00:25:22   have images and annotations, I can draw stuff on the screen, and formatting is fine. Every platform

00:25:34   has these integrations that are done by Apple, which are impossible with third-party apps.

00:25:40   And I'm thinking, what if in the future I just need the Notes app? And the Evernote news comes

00:25:46   out and I'm like "hmm, you know, that's not a good sign and I've been enjoying this app for the past

00:25:53   week and it's too early to make a judgment here but I'm gonna continue using this app and I know

00:26:00   that Evernote does a bunch more things, you can store PDFs in Evernote, you can search, it does

00:26:06   OCR which Apple doesn't do but maybe for my note-taking needs, so for me note-taking is what I do

00:26:15   before I switch to editorial, which is where I write and edit. But I do a lot of note-taking

00:26:21   beforehand. So maybe for my note-taking needs, this is all that I need to have. And it kind

00:26:30   of sounds like I'm scared of myself because what has become of me, I'm using the Notes

00:26:36   app like an animal. And I'm supposed to hate the Notes app because it doesn't do markdown,

00:26:44   Because it doesn't do all the geek features that people love, but it's fine.

00:26:51   And it does split views.

00:26:53   And I don't know, it works.

00:26:55   I mean, anything will do markdown.

00:26:58   Yeah, just the way you write.

00:27:01   It just doesn't show the preview.

00:27:05   Markdown is formatted in such a way that anything will do it, you just type it out.

00:27:08   Oh no, I need the preview when I do markdown.

00:27:11   I need the syntax highlighting.

00:27:13   Yeah, when I do markdown I want it to be like editorial, which kind of turns the markdown

00:27:19   into a preview.

00:27:21   And maybe, I don't know, but maybe Evernote will find a great new CEO and they will reassure

00:27:28   us that everything is fine, and I'm sure Evernote will have a nice 9 update with split view

00:27:35   and slide over, but it just feels like maybe overshooting.

00:27:41   I'm using...

00:27:43   I think about this stuff very often, and I do this kind of reevaluation every year.

00:27:49   Last year it made me realize that I was fine with Safari, because it was the default browser

00:27:55   and I liked the features and I was fine with it.

00:28:00   Maybe I'm using a Node system where I need less to do more, if that makes sense, and

00:28:10   And then maybe all the stuff that Evernote does now, it just adds confusion and clutter.

00:28:15   And I want something simple with Notes, with folders, with rich text, and that's it.

00:28:21   I don't know.

00:28:24   Do I sound crazy to you, Myke?

00:28:26   What's wrong with the Evernote share extension?

00:28:29   Well, it doesn't save links as nicely as the Notes app does in iOS 9.

00:28:37   And it always feels like it's messing something up for me, whether it's a link or a document

00:28:45   or a selection from a webpage, it always feels like it's kind of unreliable.

00:28:51   It's not perfect.

00:28:54   And I just like the idea of using a simple system because that's what I need instead

00:29:05   of having to juggle with this complex app that wants to do many, many things at once.

00:29:11   And, like, if I can remove...

00:29:16   So I work a lot, right?

00:29:19   And I write every day.

00:29:20   My days are spent writing and taking notes.

00:29:23   That's what I do.

00:29:24   And I need to think about as little stuff as possible.

00:29:32   I need to make a few decisions.

00:29:36   I don't need to think about how to use my Notes app, I don't want to think about how

00:29:40   to use my computer or my iPad.

00:29:43   I need to say, "Okay, this is how it works and I'm done.

00:29:45   I just need to focus on text."

00:29:48   And with Evernote, it feels like I'm constantly fighting the app, whether it's an advertisement

00:29:55   for a work chat or maybe sync is failing or maybe the share extension doesn't save a link

00:30:01   the way that I like it to be saved and they make me worry about the CEO, whereas I'm not

00:30:07   worried about Tim Cook.

00:30:12   I'm obviously joking about the CEO, it's not a concern, but I just feel like I need to

00:30:19   take notes in a simple way and maybe, maybe I'm not making a final decision here, maybe

00:30:26   the Notes app is fine.

00:30:28   my confession. Why is it that I feel tired, Myke? I feel like confessing something horrible

00:30:36   happened. I feel like I made a statement to you, not a discussion about notes.

00:30:43   The reason that you're so exhausted is because you're ashamed that you're using an app that

00:30:48   has crushed paper as the background.

00:30:51   Yes, that's weird, right? Why are they doing that?

00:30:53   I don't know why it's still there. I really don't know why it's still there.

00:30:58   doesn't bother me much, but it's weird.

00:31:01   Like when I pay attention, it's kind of,

00:31:03   why are they doing this texture

00:31:05   and this like effect on the text?

00:31:08   It's strange, it doesn't make any sense.

00:31:11   I mean, like I get it, like it's a paper

00:31:14   and people used to write on paper.

00:31:16   I have, so this is gonna sound crazy to you.

00:31:18   I haven't held a pen and a piece of paper in like two years.

00:31:23   - I don't even understand you.

00:31:26   I'm pretty sure the only thing that I write manually is my signature.

00:31:31   And usually that's on a screen.

00:31:33   I just don't... I am lucky enough to not require paper in my life.

00:31:39   I feel like that's under... it falls under the section "things I'm lucky to have, not paper."

00:31:47   For you. I'm lucky to have pen and paper because I enjoy it.

00:31:51   Yeah, I'm joking, but you know, I kind of get the metaphor behind the Notes app, but

00:31:56   it feels like it's an artifact from the Steve Jobs and Forstall era of design.

00:32:03   Not sure why it's still there.

00:32:05   I'm sorry, Myke, but the paper doesn't have a place on iOS.

00:32:10   I bought an iPad.

00:32:12   Okay, so see, that's a good topic.

00:32:15   So you bought an iPad, just out of the blue.

00:32:18   So can you really blame us for making fun of you and your shopping problem?

00:32:23   I've done it for a specific reason.

00:32:25   I've done it for iOS 9.

00:32:27   Tell me your specific reason, Michael.

00:32:29   I want to run iOS 9 on it.

00:32:32   And I will be able to, if I want to upgrade this, I will be able to sell this and I won't

00:32:37   have lost any money on it because I got a discount for buying it in the USA.

00:32:43   So you bought an iPad to run the beta of iOS 9?

00:32:47   I appreciate the sentiment behind that. I can relate. I think, tell me more.

00:32:55   So I bought the Space Gray 64 gigabyte. I got a white smart cover because why not?

00:33:01   White?

00:33:02   Yeah, I don't know why. They just had white and red there and I was like, "I'll just go for white."

00:33:07   Okay.

00:33:09   I'm still in the process of setting it all up.

00:33:13   Okay, so how long haven't you used an iPad?

00:33:17   Oh, well I have an iPad mini that I use occasionally.

00:33:22   But with any kind of frequency, it's been a while, I haven't used a big iPad since the

00:33:26   iPad mini original one came out.

00:33:29   So this still looks like a comedy device to me in some ways.

00:33:37   Because everything's really big.

00:33:40   like the icons are really big and all the user interface is really big.

00:33:44   So it feels different to you?

00:33:46   Yeah, yeah it feels really different.

00:33:49   Does it feel like the software interface is bigger or like the device is also faster and

00:33:56   like a different iPad?

00:33:57   What kind of difference do you see?

00:34:00   Well it's more difficult to manage because it's way bigger and heavier than an iPad mini.

00:34:07   it's like cumbersome. It's one thing. The soft like... I'm trying to still get used

00:34:14   to the fact that the software is bigger and I noticed this less in the third

00:34:19   party apps like in Apple stuff for some reason everything feels kind of crazy

00:34:22   it's just like oh my gosh this is so big which is kind of weird but I'm getting

00:34:27   I'm getting more and more used to it I can kind of realize what you said when

00:34:32   you originally got the iPad Air 2 like you kind of could get used to it quite

00:34:36   quickly because you kind of just get lost in the apps when the utility of

00:34:40   them becomes clear which is what I remember you saying was to that effect

00:34:45   when you got your iPad Air 2 because you were also if I remember correctly a bit

00:34:49   like this is kind of crazy I'm so used to an iPad mini but you got used to it

00:34:53   and I feel like I feel like having used it for a couple of days I'm more used to

00:34:58   it than I would have thought I would be at this point but it does still feel

00:35:01   peculiar.

00:35:03   Yeah, I think I made a good call with getting the Air 2 considering iOS 9.

00:35:09   Yeah, because you would have been very upset.

00:35:12   Yeah, it would have been a serious problem.

00:35:16   So tell me more. What have you done with this iPad? What have you noticed?

00:35:22   I assume you already did iOS 9 beta on the iPad.

00:35:26   Yeah, I didn't do anything to it until I put the beta on it.

00:35:29   Okay, so you bought the iPad, downloaded the beta, you put the beta and then you started

00:35:34   using the iPad.

00:35:35   Yeah.

00:35:36   Okay.

00:35:37   So, I've only got a few apps on here right now, the stuff that I use the most, and I'm

00:35:42   trying to build up exactly what I need.

00:35:44   I started it from fresh, so I felt like that was the best way to go.

00:35:48   But just basically, I am super excited for iOS 9 to be properly released, because this

00:35:55   split-screen stuff is so cool. I really like it. I can see how a device that has

00:36:06   this kind of functionality could be more usable to me on a daily basis because

00:36:13   I'm able to do more work with it. Like I haven't been able to do this kind of

00:36:19   stuff yet because the apps don't support it but I can imagine like sometimes

00:36:23   quite frequently what I'll do is I will get an email which has some dates in it

00:36:27   that I need to put into a spreadsheet or some like values I need to put

00:36:30   into a spreadsheet and I'm like I'm doing it on my Mac I'm like switching

00:36:33   between screens and if I'm doing it on my phone I'm like switching between apps

00:36:37   so like this also like the the split screen stuff in El Capitan is

00:36:42   interesting to me because I do a lot of full screen stuff so being able to split

00:36:46   the screens there intelligently sounds nice but doing it on iOS and the iPad I can

00:36:51   see how if it was that easy I would be doing a lot of my iOS stuff when I'm at

00:36:55   home or doing a lot more work at home even on the iPad because it seems like

00:36:58   it would be a really simple and easy way to do things you know and I can feel how

00:37:04   much nicer it would be to do that like to use that it feels like a fun thing

00:37:10   like it feels like an easy way to work it feels like a nice way to work and

00:37:14   and like an intelligent way as well, you know?

00:37:19   >> Yeah. I think there's some work to be done by Apple on the way

00:37:25   that you switch between apps in SlideOver and SplitView.

00:37:32   This could be the fact that

00:37:35   just Apple apps take advantage of this feature now.

00:37:39   So my problem is that there's

00:37:41   different set of apps, there's a different order of apps in SlideOver and in the multitasking

00:37:51   view. So the order of recent apps is different between the two modes. And that's confusing

00:38:01   because I feel like when I pull in from the SlideOver, I want to see the same app that's

00:38:10   seen the recent one in the multitasking view. So there's some confusion there, I think,

00:38:17   and it's also a problem because there's a mix of apps that are updated for iOS 9 and

00:38:25   apps that are still not updated. So you can have the same, at least we can have right

00:38:29   now on the beta, the same set of apps in both screens. But overall, this is the reason why

00:38:36   I've been trying to use Apple apps to get a better understanding of all these features.

00:38:42   In using Apple Mail, Safari, Notes, and even the podcast app, I can imagine two months

00:38:52   from now when all my apps have a split view and a slide over, this is gonna... and that's

00:38:59   what I brought in the article last week also, this is gonna change the iPad.

00:39:04   not just for me and not just for you,

00:39:06   but for people who want to do any kind of work on the iPad.

00:39:09   It feels like the kind of compromise,

00:39:14   okay, we're not going to do a single one app at a time anymore,

00:39:19   but what we're going to do is not a default.

00:39:23   We're not going to say you always need to use two apps at the same time.

00:39:27   Apps are still launched full screen,

00:39:30   and this is just an option for people who need this kind of functionality,

00:39:34   which makes sense. And I've seen a fair share of criticism from people who have been enjoying

00:39:46   multitasking on Windows. I read a post from Lucas Mathis, I think his name, his website,

00:39:54   I think it's "Ignore the Code". His blog is one of the blogs that I've been following for the

00:40:01   the past few years. It says that multitasking on iOS 9 doesn't feel intuitive, that it's

00:40:08   confusing. That hasn't been my impression. I've been confused by the different set of

00:40:15   apps, but maybe just because right now it's beta and I don't have many third-party iOS

00:40:21   9 apps. But I do think that gesture makes sense. There's stuff to fix and it's a beta

00:40:31   out, some things don't work, some interface elements could use a little more work again,

00:40:39   especially when you move the keyboard from one split view to another split view, it can

00:40:43   be confusing.

00:40:45   But overall I think it's a good idea, and I'm glad, Myke, that you also like multitasking.

00:40:54   I'm curious to know how you're going to use this, like in your daily work.

00:40:59   So you do shows, and I assume you take notes, you do spreadsheets because that's what you

00:41:05   do.

00:41:07   Do you feel like you're going to use this?

00:41:12   It's interesting because I don't know, but I feel like there's potential here to be able

00:41:17   to do more stuff on it.

00:41:19   Because I always have felt like a lot of the work that I do is just easier to do on the

00:41:24   Mac for me.

00:41:27   I'm able to move around quicker and navigate multiple apps at the same time a lot easier

00:41:33   and faster than the iPad will do.

00:41:35   But this feels like a different way of computing and it's kind of what I was asking for, for

00:41:41   the iPad to be considered like its own thing rather than just a thing that's like the other

00:41:46   thing.

00:41:47   And that excites me.

00:41:49   There are other things, like the picture in picture stuff is amazing.

00:41:52   watching the watching video and stuff whilst like browsing around or like

00:41:56   taking notes and you know I'm very excited about that like to see that kind

00:42:01   of branch out so like I feel like there will be things that happen that I would

00:42:04   want to do just specifically on the iPad because it feels like the right device

00:42:09   to use it for because it's light and portable and easy and simple to hold and

00:42:13   simple to use and simple to take around because I've been lusting after the

00:42:16   Macbook as like a light portable machine to do work on. To take traveling, to take

00:42:23   out to places, to go to my co-working space and stuff like that. But now I'm

00:42:27   I'm feeling like the iPad could be a really really good solution for that.

00:42:33   Because you know the apps that are on iOS I love more than the apps that are

00:42:38   my Mac. I like interacting with the apps that I use more on iOS. I enjoy

00:42:47   that more but I've always felt like, for me, that's the same for many people, I'm

00:42:52   able to be more productive on the Mac because it's built for productivity in a

00:42:56   different way to iOS and it's kind of just over time the way that we do

00:43:00   computing has locked into a mode where these big machines with physical

00:43:05   keyboards and mice and multiple desktops and inbuilt multitasking into them and

00:43:09   stuff like that, they are easier for many people to do work on. And then people

00:43:15   like yourself have found new ways to work on these devices and now Apple

00:43:20   themselves are giving us new ways to work on these devices. So I think that

00:43:24   this is a step in the right direction for being able to, for most people,

00:43:31   rather than just for experimenters like you to do real work on the iPad?

00:43:37   Well yeah, you know, one of the big reasons why I like iOS is that I like iOS apps.

00:43:48   And the apps that I can use on iOS, I don't have those apps on the Mac.

00:43:54   There's no editorial, there's no, you know, Twitterrific.

00:43:59   I do like it.

00:44:01   Many of my favorite apps are not on iOS, and I know that there's alternatives that I can

00:44:08   use, but I just feel like as a platform with the features and the apps that I like, it

00:44:16   gets me more than OS X gets me.

00:44:24   And Apple is even showing us how many new features we can have those on iOS instead

00:44:31   of OS X.

00:44:32   And picture in picture is a great example.

00:44:35   There's no picture in picture for OS X.

00:44:39   You can kind of fake it, you can work around that, but it's not as easy as pressing the

00:44:45   home button to close a video and still having a floating pop-up of the video following you

00:44:52   around.

00:44:53   do it, but it requires more work on your part.

00:44:57   This is built into the operating system to work in this specific way.

00:45:02   This is built on the principle that stuff should be simple.

00:45:08   So you just need to close an app and the video follows you around.

00:45:13   And what's interesting is how limitations often breed change, in the sense that because

00:45:23   the platform is so closed, in the sense that there's a set of rules, there's a set of confines,

00:45:32   there's a set of stuff you can't do, and you need to think about "Okay, I want to do this,

00:45:39   but how?"

00:45:40   considering these constraints, considering how iOS apps work, and I only have one button,

00:45:47   I don't have a physical keyboard most of the time, I don't have a big screen, what am I

00:45:51   supposed to do here?

00:45:53   You can see as a product, picture in picture, comes from this kind of thinking.

00:46:00   Let's take a complex idea, which is a video that plays in real time, that follows you

00:46:08   around that has controls and let's make the simplest possible implementation. And as a

00:46:14   product that's impressive I think because it requires deep thinking about what you're

00:46:24   dealing with. You could have gone with so many other different versions of this. You

00:46:28   could have added a new gesture, you could have said "ok, I want to have the entire

00:46:34   app resize but the video kind of gets bigger, you know, there could have been many other

00:46:39   different takes on this and instead, you know, you gotta think simple to do complex stuff.

00:46:47   And that's, picture in picture is a good example.

00:46:51   And so, yeah, in comparing iOS, working on iOS to working on OS X, there's many other

00:47:00   like this, at least for me, there's many other examples of this.

00:47:05   I can just pull down on the home screen to start searching instead of remembering the

00:47:09   spotlight and that kind of stuff.

00:47:11   It just feels simple and maybe closed, but easier.

00:47:16   And yeah, it just works for me.

00:47:20   My favourite thing about iOS 9 on the iPad though is the new notifications view in landscape,

00:47:29   which on the left presents widgets and on the right, I love it.

00:47:35   I think it's fantastic.

00:47:37   It is new and I wasn't expecting that.

00:47:44   Someone told me on Twitter, go check out the new notification center on the iPad and you

00:47:48   get this new split view there.

00:47:51   It's interesting, something that I noticed, Apple is kind of making a difference of the

00:47:56   today section and the widgets section which couldn't get more confusing than that.

00:48:02   So you have today widgets and notifications. Today is where you can put some widgets and

00:48:08   they are fixed in position so they're always there. And then on the right hand side, so

00:48:12   that's on the left, on the right hand side you have your notifications and if you have

00:48:16   any widgets in that part which you put in in settings, you drag and drop where you want

00:48:21   them to show, then you can choose between widgets and notifications. So you can have

00:48:25   two panes of widgets if you want them.

00:48:27   But like I have like fantastic how I only focus on the left

00:48:30   and then I have my notifications on the right so far.

00:48:33   It's very nice.

00:48:35   - I went with Todoist on the left

00:48:38   and a bunch of stuff on the right side.

00:48:41   I don't know, it's another instance of Apple

00:48:46   using the iPad screen to do more.

00:48:48   Not gonna be groundbreaking revolutionary change,

00:48:53   possibly still useful.

00:48:55   One thing that I don't like right now is that the widgets that I use aren't properly sized

00:49:01   for the more narrow layout of the widgets.

00:49:07   So it's like there's a bunch of widgets that kind of overflow and they look ugly.

00:49:14   But yes, it's a nice change.

00:49:16   Not a big one, but a nice change.

00:49:19   So what do you...

00:49:20   Overall, Myke, what do you think you're going to do with this iPad?

00:49:23   "Can you imagine yourself when iOS 9 launches, when apps are updated to take advantage of iOS 9,

00:49:31   based on a few days of usage? What's your overall take?"

00:49:36   I can see it taking the place of some work that I do at home or out of the office.

00:49:48   but it's not gonna take the... it's not gonna replace my Mac, right?

00:49:55   Okay. I'm not gonna just use the Mac Pro and the iPad. I'm still gonna use my MacBook Pro to do stuff.

00:50:01   But I can see that there are certain things, research stuff, responding to some email,

00:50:10   reading Twitter, that kind of stuff. Well, if I ever get a Twitter client that I can stand to look at.

00:50:15   Not bitter at all about that now. I feel like at that point I may then start to replace some of the work that I do with the iPad instead.

00:50:32   Because it's a nice device and it's got a nice big screen and it looks good and it works really well and it's fast and I'll be able to be more productive on it.

00:50:41   we'll see. I mean, but I am excited about it. I'm looking forward to seeing what apps

00:50:47   will begin, will start to actually support it, but we can go from there and see where

00:50:51   we end up.

00:50:52   And, you know, there's going to be a bigger iPad, I think for sure at this point.

00:50:59   Yeah, for sure.

00:51:00   Developers even found a bigger keyboard in the iOS 9 code this week. And apparently you

00:51:08   you will be able to have two full-sized landscape apps at the same time on this bigger iPad,

00:51:17   or maybe two full-sized portrait apps.

00:51:20   Anyway, it'll allow for an even better split view, which makes sense, and I guess the bigger

00:51:26   iPad also allows Apple to put in more memory, and a faster processor, better hardware because

00:51:33   of the increased space, and of course more battery.

00:51:36   So it makes sense at this point with these resizable layouts from apps, they can go to

00:51:44   any size.

00:51:45   So a bigger iPad, we don't know yet what Apple's message is going to be for that device, but

00:51:54   I can see how multitasking could take advantage of that.

00:51:59   Should we take a break?

00:52:01   Yes.

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00:53:54   So Federico, we didn't get to talk about the watch OS last week because we were so short

00:54:00   on time and you know I think I would like to hear your thoughts on it a little bit and

00:54:06   see how you feel.

00:54:08   So last week we got watch OS 2, a quick rundown of some of the features as a reminder for

00:54:13   people there's some new watch faces, third party complications exist now, people will

00:54:18   be able to make those, time travel which is a feature to turn the digital crown and complications

00:54:23   will change to show future and past events. There is a night stand mode which allows you

00:54:28   to set your watch down at night and it has a nice little clock. We have enhancements

00:54:32   to digital touch which have multiple friend rings and you can change the colours in your

00:54:38   drawings. FaceTime audio support, there are new Apple Pay stuff like reward cards and

00:54:44   UK support. Well that will be in there before then, I think that's coming via a different

00:54:47   update probably with music but there is reward card stuff. Siri is getting better, it has

00:54:52   HomeKit integration you can open glances with Siri so you can open the

00:54:57   OmniFocus Glance and it will do that and of course it will integrate transit

00:55:01   directions along with iOS 9. You can reply to emails now, third-party apps can

00:55:07   write to the activity rings, you can start workouts with Siri, share the

00:55:11   awards that you get and of course we have native apps of a whole host of

00:55:15   improvements like microphone access, speaker access, digital crown access, that

00:55:20   kind of stuff. So how do you feel overall about what we have here? Like, are you excited

00:55:27   about it?

00:55:29   Yes, I am. And even if some of the developer changes are not as native as Apple wants to

00:55:43   describe them.

00:55:45   Like what? What do you mean?

00:55:47   Like the Digital Crown, I saw on Twitter some discussion, it's not like real full native

00:55:54   access.

00:55:55   It is a better access, developers can use the Digital Crown to control input, but it

00:56:04   doesn't give them the full control over how content scrolls, and they could do even more.

00:56:13   For instance, Haptic feedback in apps, they only offer you some presets.

00:56:21   So it's native, but it's like last year CloudKit was free with limits, this year

00:56:26   WatchOS 2 is kind of native with limits.

00:56:30   But it's better than before, of course.

00:56:32   And I am excited.

00:56:35   But I kind of wonder, in a way, this was what the virtualized one was meant to be.

00:56:46   You could make that kind of argument.

00:56:48   And not because...

00:56:49   I mean, any software update could be regarded as what the previous one was meant to be.

00:56:57   But in this case, because there's such a short amount of time between the two releases, this

00:57:05   This is obviously something that Apple had been working on while launching the watch.

00:57:11   And so being so close to the device launch makes it even more clear that this is much

00:57:17   better than what we have today.

00:57:22   What I keep thinking of is, especially after watching the John Gruber excellent interview

00:57:28   with Phil Schiller at WWDC.

00:57:33   What's the metric that Apple used to say, "Okay, we need to go with the first watch

00:57:41   kit in April instead of September, and we need to go with third-party apps with watch

00:57:49   kit, with the first version, instead of waiting five months to get them right and to make

00:57:56   them faster and more capable."

00:57:58   And I'm curious to understand because I feel like I don't know enough to say "yeah, this

00:58:08   is why they want to go this way".

00:58:11   I'm curious to know what benefits the company found in having third party apps with many

00:58:19   many limitations versus just waiting five months and creating anticipation in people

00:58:25   and not having initial device reviews saying "it works but the third party apps kinda suck".

00:58:32   I wanna know what kind of level of judgement they use because I don't disagree with what

00:58:40   Apple did because having third party apps at launch helps sell the device, you know,

00:58:46   because they can do TV advertisements with apps and they can say "yeah, the watch does

00:58:51   all this stuff, and it's a computer and it's magical and you need it.

00:58:56   But the other argument is very, very solid.

00:59:00   Just wait five months, give developers real tools to start making apps, devote resources,

00:59:08   instead of shipping WatchKit from November, you know, start working on WatchKit in November

00:59:13   and shipping in April, just focus your entire team on making WatchOS 2, so maybe if you're

00:59:19   launch in April you don't even need to wait until September for watchOS 2.

00:59:26   The other argument is solid.

00:59:28   You can create anticipation, you can tell people what apps are coming, you can have

00:59:33   a strong second wave of watch marketing by giving websites access to apps.

00:59:41   It's a solid counter argument.

00:59:43   But also Apple's strategy makes sense.

00:59:45   So I kind of want to...

00:59:46   Again, the features are nice. Complications, Siri, all good stuff.

00:59:51   But the core of these change. That's what I want to discuss with you.

00:59:56   What do you think of Apple's decision to go with WatchKit and then WatchOS 2?

01:00:01   I don't know why they did it. That is my kind of feeling of this.

01:00:06   Why did they ever do WatchKit in the first place?

01:00:11   What was stopping them from just waiting another six to eight months?

01:00:17   Like before even releasing the watch at all?

01:00:20   Well there's got to be an aspect of insecurity maybe.

01:00:27   Of saying "yeah we're launching a watch but it's only with Apple apps"

01:00:31   No but they didn't need to do it that way right?

01:00:34   They could have done it exactly as they did.

01:00:36   So they could have shown the watch off in September and had it come out in April.

01:00:40   in April, or they could have shown the watch off in June at WWDC and had it ship in September

01:00:47   with full native apps.

01:00:49   Yeah, I feel like they wanted the public event to be in September last year for maybe reasons

01:00:55   like besides publicity to get the device approved for regulation reasons. They needed to do

01:01:04   September with the device. But I don't understand getting people to work on WatchKit last year

01:01:13   and making them focus on WatchKit for months and then also making them work on WatchOS

01:01:18   too at the same time for June. That's kind of... that's weird to me. Like, is there a

01:01:25   huge huge benefit in having third-party apps right now on the watch? Couldn't people wait

01:01:33   five months would have that seriously compromised the initial sales of the watch?

01:01:40   The lack of watch kit apps?

01:01:43   I don't know.

01:01:45   It's the aspect of watchOS 2 that I keep thinking about and maybe in the big picture it doesn't

01:01:53   make any sense to obsess over this because in September we'll get apps and again I can

01:02:00   make another argument.

01:02:02   Even if we discuss this Apple decision, is it a serious problem?

01:02:09   Even if Apple was at a bad judgment there, is it a problem?

01:02:14   In the end, people are still going to buy watches this holiday season.

01:02:18   They're still going to have apps.

01:02:20   Yeah, but it's the...

01:02:22   So do these five months matter?

01:02:24   Do these five months matter?

01:02:25   Maybe.

01:02:26   In the big picture?

01:02:27   Because I don't know what the perception is of the average user that owns a watch.

01:02:34   Like are they using them to be like, "This thing is so slow."

01:02:40   And is that going to affect their decisions in the future?

01:02:44   Is that going to affect when people say to them, "What do you think of that?"

01:02:47   And they say, "It's just really slow.

01:02:49   Look how slow this is.

01:02:50   I press a button and it doesn't do anything."

01:02:53   That's what makes me think about it in this way, right?

01:02:57   Because there are so many third party apps, basically every app that you own has a watch

01:03:01   app at this point, is it damaging to the overall opinion of the watch amongst people that don't

01:03:11   understand what watch kit is or don't care what watch kit is?

01:03:15   Is that harming to the overall experience and potential future longevity of the product?

01:03:19   That is a question that I don't know the answer to, but I know that as a user that understands

01:03:24   watch kit I still get frustrated when I have to sit and wait because the whole

01:03:28   idea of this product is to basic like the main reason is an accessory to the

01:03:36   iPhone for you to pass information to your iPhone if your iPhone to pass

01:03:41   information to you without you needed to interact with your iPhone right that is

01:03:44   like the core of what this device is intended to be right now when it is

01:03:49   taking me minutes to open the app to get the information at that point or like

01:03:57   when I'm sitting down and looking at it spin spin spin the screen goes off go

01:04:01   turn it back on it's still spinning I could just grab my phone and when it's

01:04:05   causing me the frustration it's like I when I think to myself I need to do

01:04:09   something which I've been doing more recently I think oh I need to do

01:04:12   something and I go to do it on my watch and I'm like I notice it's gonna take

01:04:16   longer. That feels like that is a failure of the product, of what its core

01:04:21   functionality is supposed to be, and it at least seems like that native apps

01:04:27   will help with this in significant ways. Which makes me wonder why do we have

01:04:33   watch kit apps? Why are they not just like glances and notifications? Why did

01:04:38   they give us watch kit apps when they must have been testing this stuff and

01:04:42   they must have seen what the delays were like because it's natural because of the

01:04:45   technology they're using. I just don't know why they either didn't wait until

01:04:51   they could get full apps or why they did watch kit at all or why they didn't just

01:04:56   like why didn't release the product and just have no SDK and just Apple apps

01:04:59   like the iPhone until they were able to actually give people the apps that would

01:05:03   service the device properly. So let me give you another possible explanation.

01:05:10   They did this because they know that the people who are going to buy an Apple Watch now are

01:05:16   early adopters of the device.

01:05:19   And early adopters of Apple products can endure the frustrations of initial software problems.

01:05:26   And they're still going to be using Apple products anyway.

01:05:29   And in five months, they're going to be happier and they're going to be advocates of the WatchOS

01:05:35   2 because it's much better than what it used to be.

01:05:38   And early adopters and people who love Apple products forget stuff quickly.

01:05:44   On the other hand, setting an initial perception of something that is not there kind of lasts

01:05:57   more and it's easy to turn a missing feature into a meme.

01:06:04   Let's say that Apple doesn't do Apple Watch apps on the first version of the watch.

01:06:10   So for five or six months you don't have apps on the watch.

01:06:13   And the mainstream media starts writing the Apple Watch, it's cool, it's fine, it's useful,

01:06:22   but it doesn't have apps.

01:06:24   And the general consumer, who is not an early adopter of anything because they're very conscious

01:06:32   about spending their money on electronics, they browse around Facebook and websites,

01:06:40   they read and they form this belief that the Apple Watch doesn't have apps.

01:06:46   So when Apple does WWDC, that kind of consumer doesn't care about developer changes and

01:06:52   watchOS too.

01:06:53   And for many months, they keep going with the idea that the Apple Watch doesn't have

01:06:57   apps, because once, when they were curious about the device, and they read on mainstream

01:07:02   media that it didn't have apps, they formed this idea that there were no apps on the Apple

01:07:07   Watch.

01:07:08   And I feel like if I were Apple, I would also think that the initial perception of a missing

01:07:17   feature is stronger than the initial frustration of an early adopter.

01:07:24   And from that perspective it kind of makes sense.

01:07:27   Yeah, I don't know if I understand what you're saying and I can see your line of thinking,

01:07:32   but I don't know if it works out as simply as that because basically what you're saying is

01:07:37   people that aren't early adopters won't spend the money, right?

01:07:42   Because it doesn't have the third-party apps. But it's kind of the same sort of idea because

01:07:48   if an early adopter then sees that it has apps on it and buys it, they're going to be unsatisfied

01:07:53   with a product and they are people that are potentially more likely to be upset because

01:07:59   they're less price conscious. And the thing is, if the watch didn't come with apps, Apple

01:08:04   can just use their insane marketing machine to go "Now has apps". That would not have

01:08:11   been a difficult message for them to get across. I understand what you're saying, it makes

01:08:17   perfect sense, but I still feel there's the other side of it as well.

01:08:21   There's no way out of this without working at Apple.

01:08:24   No, we would just keep going around and around.

01:08:26   And what happened was, executives in a room made a judgement call.

01:08:32   That's what happened.

01:08:33   They felt like they needed to have apps on this device, right?

01:08:37   Which is why there isn't a new Apple TV now or whatever, because it wouldn't be able to

01:08:40   have potentially all the apps that they want, like the content apps.

01:08:44   They want to have...

01:08:46   It feels like somebody's made a decision at Apple, which is like, if we release a new

01:08:50   device, it has to have apps on it. And then the software team is saying okay but

01:08:57   the SDK will not be ready, right? And then marketing or whoever is saying like we

01:09:03   want to put this out there, this is what we really want to have.

01:09:06   You can imagine this internal fight to where somebody's gone

01:09:10   screw it we're gonna do this, this and this, they're gonna be underpowered, we'll

01:09:13   have an SDK out in June, job done and we're just

01:09:18   going to get it out there. And so they've made a decision and they've made a selection of calls.

01:09:22   I don't know if it's the right thing to do, I don't know if it's the wrong thing to do,

01:09:26   I don't know what the right option would be, I can just see they made a choice. And

01:09:31   I agree with you, like if they didn't put it out maybe the marketing message would have been really

01:09:38   bad. Right, no apps. And then you're looking at Android Wear which has a ton of apps and there

01:09:44   are people gonna compare them? Who knows? So you gotta get at least have they even

01:09:48   it's not they're not real apps they're like they're like you know it's like

01:09:51   smoke and mirrors right that they're not actual apps it's just information being

01:09:55   beamed from another device but it gives the impression of that and should it

01:10:00   should they be more responsive? Yes they most definitely should in a couple of

01:10:04   months will they be? Yes they definitely will. So will it have been worth it? I

01:10:08   don't know maybe and that's you see I mean that that is this like eternal

01:10:12   about or that we play with this sort of stuff and we do because it's fun to talk about it.

01:10:17   But it is a decision that as pundits we can discuss and I just I feel like that there

01:10:24   is a potential they could have burned some bridges with some people who bought this device

01:10:28   because I know I'm frustrated and I love my Apple watch. I actually said that for the

01:10:32   first time in San Francisco. I hadn't said it. I was in San Francisco. I was out and

01:10:35   about all week and I was able to do things. I was able to see stuff was happening, archive

01:10:40   set emails to be read another day I could do all of that on my watch and I

01:10:43   was walking down the street in San Francisco and I proclaimed I love my

01:10:46   Apple watch and I do but you know what I love about it everything except apps I

01:10:51   love everything else I love notifications I love the glances but the

01:10:55   apps give me frustration. Apple's apps work fine but third-party apps when they

01:11:01   work they're great but that doesn't happen as much as I would like it to and

01:11:05   it's not fault of the developers it is the confines that they're working within

01:11:08   which makes me very excited for watchOS 2 because Overcast, OmniFocus, Dew, Dark

01:11:17   Sky, all the apps that I'm... Can you say that again? What's the app? Dew? There you go. Thank you for the

01:11:24   Cortex reference. You should check out Cortex by the way if you haven't already.

01:11:28   Relay.fm/Cortex. Fun show. Me and CGBGray. All of those apps are gonna work

01:11:34   better right they are going to work better and I'm excited for that to

01:11:38   happen because right now I want to be able to use them to their full ability I

01:11:45   agree completely just saying in the big picture having these kinds of watch apps

01:11:51   right now it's not as bad probably as Apple Maps the first year you know I

01:11:59   think we're gonna agree on that oh well yeah I mean it's a different ballgame

01:12:03   game but yeah that was way worse I mean because it's it was people already have

01:12:06   the iPhones and they took away a feature and replaced it with a terrible one.

01:12:10   It's not Apple Maps bad as they would say in Silicon Valley.

01:12:14   It isn't really that bad but it's it's it's only frustrating to the people that already own the

01:12:18   devices which is nowhere near it's like probably a minuscule percentage point of

01:12:22   the people that own iPhones.

01:12:24   Yeah and you know I totally agree with you it's it's it was a

01:12:31   decision some people around the table or you know walking around with their Apple

01:12:37   watches because the Apple watch told them so and they're like should we have

01:12:41   apps yes or no and cross the yes field and and that's what we have today well

01:12:49   the what I wonder is years from now we will look back at this period of Watch

01:12:55   kit apps as a huge failure? I don't know. We don't even have numbers for Apple Watch

01:13:03   sales so we can even make reasonable assumptions about the performance of the device in the

01:13:08   open market. Will this problem become even more of a problem now that the device is rolling

01:13:16   out to more countries? We don't know. It's an intellectual discussion that is stimulating

01:13:28   to have because of all these possible outcomes and reasons that we can come up with. But

01:13:38   from the practical perspective, watchOS2 is going to be a great update. Is it going to

01:13:42   be great because what we have today is very very bad. No, to what we have today is not

01:13:49   super bad. It could be better, which is what watchOS2 wants to be, what wants to be better,

01:13:54   wants to do more. They're doing complications and the Nightstand mode seems pretty genius

01:14:00   to me. They're adding stuff on top of the friends interface, more fitness stuff. It's

01:14:04   gonna be great to have third party apps doing stuff with the Activity Rings. So it's gonna

01:14:09   be better. But it's this first version. Will it be remembered in the list of worst Apple

01:14:16   products ever? I don't think so. Does it suck? Sometimes. But that's true of many first things.

01:14:25   So I don't know, Myke. See, it just... Every time we have these deep discussions, me and

01:14:32   you, it just feels like it's emotionally exhausting. I don't know why. I don't know why you bring

01:14:39   got the worst in me when it comes to using my emotional resources to discuss software.

01:14:45   I don't know what is it that you do.

01:14:46   Or it's the best.

01:14:47   Maybe I bring out the best.

01:14:49   Yeah, depending on your point of view, I just, I feel awesome and exhausted at the same time.

01:14:59   Well let me give you a break and then I still have one more thing that I want to talk to

01:15:02   you about which I think is just going to make you feel really happy.

01:15:05   Okay, let's do this, yes.

01:15:06   This week's episode is also brought to you by Field Notes.

01:15:09   I love Field Notes.

01:15:11   I was talking about how much I love pen and paper earlier on in the show.

01:15:15   The paper that I love is Field Notes.

01:15:17   They are the notebook brand I have used for years.

01:15:20   I am a very happy colour subscriber of Field Notes.

01:15:24   What this means is I get every new edition of Field Notes sent to me directly.

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01:16:54   to fieldnotesbrand.com/workshop you can find out more about the workshop edition there

01:16:59   and also if you buy a colour subscription, a year long colour subscription starting with

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01:17:08   and a three pack of pitch black memo books for free and even though I believe you should

01:17:13   buy a subscription because I think it's worth it you can also buy the packs of the workshop

01:17:17   edition separately too but you want to hurry because these things will sell out and when

01:17:21   they're gone, they're gone. Field Notes, I'm not writing it down to remember it later,

01:17:25   I'm writing it down to remember it now. Federico, I would like you to give me the overview here

01:17:34   of editorial 1.2 and why...

01:17:36   Come on, are you crazy? Overviews by me of editorial?

01:17:41   Why is this more than just a point release? What's going on in here?

01:17:46   Oh, well, okay.

01:17:49   So you say you want the overview.

01:17:51   Yeah.

01:17:52   iPhone 6 support, iOS 8 support, finally, I mean, a week after the iOS 9 introduction.

01:18:00   Share sheets, support for syntax highlighting with CSS, HTML, JavaScript, support for fountain,

01:18:09   which is this markdown fork for screenwriting, task paper enhancements, drag and drop for

01:18:19   paragraphs so you can rearrange your text, better search features so you can search and

01:18:26   replace with more options, custom templates and custom previews so every time you create

01:18:35   Create a file, you can use a workflow to create the file template, which is awesome if you

01:18:42   do a lot of writing.

01:18:43   Custom previews, I use them to have a preview of how an article will look once it's published

01:18:49   on Mac Stories, because Brett Terpstra made me a huge favor in making a Mac Stories preview

01:18:57   theme for editorial.

01:19:01   This is crazy.

01:19:02   Python modules for Twitter, iOS Reminders, Dialogues, which is a lightweight UI Python

01:19:13   module to basically script interfaces in a simple way.

01:19:19   You can query the Twitter API with the system accounts, with the Twitter account that you

01:19:25   configure in the settings on your device.

01:19:27   Well you can now call that up in Python and call the Twitter API with that account without

01:19:34   having to do complex authentication.

01:19:38   You can have tabs in the web browser, so you can have multiple tabs if you do research,

01:19:44   if you do a lot of writing, long form writing and you need to look up multiple web pages

01:19:48   or if you're making a complex workflow and you need to look up to different sets of documentation,

01:19:54   you can do that.

01:19:57   URL schemes to send the link from Safari or other apps to editorial.

01:20:03   Do I need to keep going here?

01:20:06   What is this doing for you on a daily basis?

01:20:08   How is this improving the work that you're able to do?

01:20:12   The preview makes it easier to kind of see the flow, the visual flow of an article.

01:20:16   So when I write, I tend to consider a lot how, because a lot of my readers prefer to

01:20:22   read articles on Mac stories instead of being a paper pocket because we made it very clear

01:20:29   that we want people to experience a great reading view on the web.

01:20:34   So having a good visual flow is important to me and the custom preview lets me do that.

01:20:39   So what does it do?

01:20:40   It makes it look like Mac stories?

01:20:43   Exactly like Mac stories with footnotes, with headings, with images, captions, everything.

01:20:49   It's exactly like Mac Stories, but locally for files.

01:20:53   And that's a huge help for me.

01:20:55   What app used to do that, or does do that?

01:20:57   Is it MarsEdit?

01:20:58   I don't know.

01:21:01   Probably when you configure a blog in MarsEdit, probably.

01:21:06   One thing that I use all the time...

01:21:11   On Mac Stories I embed a lot of tweets, and also YouTube videos and Instagram pictures

01:21:17   sometimes, and I made a workflow that uses the new Twitter module to generate an embed

01:21:25   code for a tweet. That's the HTML code that every time you need to go to twitter.com,

01:21:31   click on a bunch of icons and copy that code. While I have a workflow that I just need to

01:21:35   copy a link to a tweet, I tap the workflow and I have the embed code, because I use the

01:21:41   Twitter API in Python to have that code.

01:21:44   So I do, I need to, like, let's say there's an Apple event and I need to embed 50 tweets

01:21:50   on Mac stories.

01:21:51   That's no problem.

01:21:52   I just need to copy those links, like it's 50 tabs in my Twitter client, and then I have

01:21:59   a list of Twitter links.

01:22:01   And instead of having to go to the web browser 50 times to copy and paste that embed code,

01:22:05   I just tap the workflow and I got 50 embed codes automatically.

01:22:09   So that's been a huge time saver for Apple earnings calls and WWDC.

01:22:14   I can collect tweets here and there, make a good roundup of stuff.

01:22:19   That's been very useful.

01:22:20   Tabs, of course, because when I'm writing I can open different websites and my writing

01:22:26   process I do a lot of...

01:22:29   I read my articles like at least three or four times and links is in the final portion

01:22:36   of the article.

01:22:38   I'm writing for the last time, I open a bunch of websites and then I insert the links.

01:22:43   Now with tabs, I can be quicker because I can have tabs in the web browser.

01:22:50   I feel like those are the biggest changes.

01:22:53   Probably search and replace has also been a good one.

01:22:58   I have options now to define how editorials should search for a particular word or sentence.

01:23:06   I would say another welcome change has been the share sheet.

01:23:12   Because when I tweet deals, you know, price drops with my stories weekly, with my stories

01:23:18   deals on Twitter, I no longer need to jump back and forth between editorial and the Twitter

01:23:26   client.

01:23:27   An editorial can just, at any point in the workflow, when I say so, it brings up the

01:23:33   share sheet and I send a MacStorys deals tweet with the account without leaving the app.

01:23:40   And I feel like those are the biggest changes for me. And it's it I just Ollie, the guy behind the

01:23:47   tutorial, this person is crazy but in a great fantastic and absurd way that is is making this

01:23:54   app and he has this annual release cycle which some people don't like for obvious reasons.

01:24:01   It's like, in every way, this is like the Ferrari of text editors.

01:24:07   They make a new version every year and it keeps getting better and better.

01:24:13   I would love for all of it to be faster with iOS 9 this year, especially because multitasking

01:24:19   on iPad could be really really great with editorial.

01:24:23   But yeah, as I wrote in my review, if someone came to me and said "look, for some reason

01:24:32   you did really bad things and now we're gonna take all your iOS apps, you can only keep one,

01:24:38   which one is it?" and it would be editorial. Because if I were to leave with just one iOS

01:24:45   app for the rest of my life, I would find a way to do everything with editorial. I could

01:24:53   build a Twitter client with a custom interface if I wanted to, I could manage reminders,

01:25:00   I could do calendar, I could browse the web, read articles, I could do everything. This

01:25:10   This is how stuff gets done here with the editorial.

01:25:14   It's a big deal to me and it's a great update.

01:25:18   Hopefully iOS 9 support will come soon.

01:25:20   Well, I'm happy that you're happy.

01:25:23   Is that a good overview?

01:25:24   Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted because I haven't read your article yet and I just

01:25:28   wanted to hear straight from the horse's mouth, as it were, what is so great about this app.

01:25:35   But good for you, you just stole a page view from me with this overview.

01:25:39   I just, whilst you were talking, I clicked through to look at it so if anything you got

01:25:44   an extra one out of me.

01:25:46   JK love you Myke.

01:25:48   On that note, I think that wraps up this week's episode of Connected.

01:25:53   If you'd like to catch our show notes you can do that by going to relay.fm/connected/44.

01:25:59   If you want to find me and Federico online there's a few ways you can do that.

01:26:02   Federico is @Vitiicci on Twitter.

01:26:05   I am @imike.

01:26:08   Federico writes over at MaxStories.net and the two of us host a video game show on Relay

01:26:14   called Virtual.

01:26:15   We have two shows, two episodes, posting this week discussing all of the news coming out

01:26:20   of E3.

01:26:21   So I recommend that you give that one a try if you haven't already.

01:26:25   It could be a good week to jump in and just, you know, stay abreast of what's happening

01:26:29   in the world of video games.

01:26:31   But we'll be back next time.

01:26:32   Until then, Mr Federico Vittucci, will you say goodbye to our audience?

01:26:36   Arrivederci, audience!

01:26:38   .